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So the drivers front wheel bearing on my 92 Legacy Sport is doing the humming noise and thumps a little over 40mph when i turn the wheels. I called around to get a repair quote and i got them ranging from $220 to $479 from the 2 places i called. The more expensive of the 2, the place told me it would be better to replace the whole hub not just the bearing. Only issue there, is they quote labor cost higher than the other place quoted me for the whole job for the bearing replacement. So I am looking for a bit of Tech advice on how i should go about this. I cannot afford the almost $500 job right now and would have to drive around on it for a while until i could. I can afford the cheaper one though. If i go and replace just the bearing, do i risk the chance of still having an issue or the bearing not having longevity?

The pics don't work anymore, but here's my thread.

http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?t=21223

Do understand that was my first time doing it, and I didn't have power tools then, so I made it out to be a much bigger deal than it really was.

So the shop with the cheaper labor was going to replace the wheel bearing, but the shop with the more expensive labor was going to replace the hub?

Doesn't a new hub come with the wheel bearing already pressed in? If it does, I would think that it'd be faster to yank the old hub out and put the new one in. It's gotta come apart either way, but you would spend less time if you didn't have to press the bearing in. Seems kinda fishy.

I vote for just getting the bearing replaced.

Well i looked in all the online parts stores i could find, and can only find wheel bearings listed......

Check Autozone and the other national chains. You can get an entire hub with the bearing already installed. All you do is swap the hub and return the old one. It's pretty cheap and you can do it in your driveway.

I checked online. I searched for wheel hub and it only shows the bearing.... same thing with 1st subaru parts

wallgood, if you can do the work yourself, go to Catalilna or Auto Parts Recyclers. They are both in Tucson. They both have spindles for $75 to $85. You'll just have to disassemble your front suspension and swap in the j/y part. I did that to my '93 ss with no problem. Legacy and Impreza spindles are interchangeable and possibly a few other models, too.

Just make sure when you get the used spindle, that it's in good condition. Spin the bearing by hand and it should make a smooth ssshhhh sound with a little resistance. If it is totally free-wheeling the bearing is no good. Or, if it feels rough when spinning it the bearing is also no good. And, of course, if it's all rusted out it's better to get another one.

$75 and a hour or two of work and you're set. Better than the quotes you got. That will keep you going for a while.

ultrasonic wrote:Check Autozone and the other national chains. You can get an entire hub with the bearing already installed. All you do is swap the hub and return the old one. It's pretty cheap and you can do it in your driveway.

AC30Treb, before he sold his turbo legacy, found this deal at Autozone, NAPA, or Carquest. One of the nationals, not sure which one. It was only $85 or $100 for the hub with a core exchange. Remanufactured hub with new bearing. He didn't find it on line, it was a walk in. I can't think of a cheaper or easier way to do it. I'd rather do this than get one from a junk yard, even if the jy part was half the cost.

I will look into that this week. Other than ruining the hub, can temporarily driving this way hurt anything else?

Well, you risk the bearing coming apart while you're driving, and if the outer CV joint doesn't hold together, then your hub (along with your wheel) will come right out of the knuckle!

Now I've driven some 50k on bad wheel bearings before, and I'm driving on two bad ones now, and I've yet to have anything like this happen. But it is a possibility.

Well i am going to look into changing it this weekend as soon as i find a place that has the hub. For someone who has never done anything like this before, how difficult is it gonna be? I know cars well and can fix anything under the hood, I'm just not really knowledgeable when it come to the wheels and suspension.

Also, on thepartsbin.com, i found 2 different item under wheel bearings. 1 is a wheel hub assembly and the other is a wheel bearing assembly. The Wheel hub only shows parts for the rear wheel, while the wheel bearing assembly shows parts for both.
Is this the item i am replacing? It is categorized under wheel bearing assembly. Like i said, i am new to this, so i want to be sure i get the right part

Wow, this must be a bad month for wheel bearings, after swapping out the bad legacy transmission for the good one last week, I was driving the car Monday night and looks like I've got one, possibly two wheel bearings that are either gone or going.

Funny thing is I'm in Tucson too, I was trying to get help changing the transmission from people on AZawd.org because its a pretty active local site, but here just looking for wheel bearing info I ran across two of you that are down here. Weird.

I'd say lets have a wheel bearing scavenge and install day this weekend, but I'm going to LA for the California Rally Series banquet. Actually my rally partner/car co-owner will be around this weekend, so if you're interested in teaming up let me know and I'll let him know, provided we can also find a hub assembly in time. I don't expect it will be that difficult to change out the whole hub assembly, can't be worse then the tranny we did last week, which we just did with a Haynes. The hub assembly you probably don't even need the Haynes for.

shea

I dont think it will be that difficult if its the whole assembly. i dont want to even attempt pressing new bearings. But i also dont hold high hopes of finding one by this weekend. I'm gonna try and find a good used one to use for a while till i can afford to do it right. Probably do both fronts just cause i can

hmmm, well I think my problem turned out to be the dust shield for the brake rotor rubbing the rotor... I haven't driven the car yet, but my friend drove it back to my house after identifying that as what was rubbing and creating friction... we must have inadvertently bent it when changing the transmission...

when asking for the part you need to swap the whole assembly you want to ask for the spindle.

See if you can find a hub assembly at the junkyard or something... I got one for $30 that solved all my problems.

I got an assembly off of blackbart. In the mail right now

When I did mine, I just pulled off the entire spindle and brought it to work. We have a press, so I just pressed the hub and bearing out, then right back in.

If you do this, don't forget the seals. There is one on either side of the bearing, and they are not interchangeable.

I think total for a new bearing and both seals was like $50 or less.